Remember, there's a difference between "easy to heal" and "least amount of healing required".

KBN and dipstik's numbers are focused upon maximizing mitigation, which means reducing incoming damage as much as possible. It's a long term view.

By stacking Shield and getting rid of Defense/Absorb, you're making it easier to heal you (by reducing spikiness, which can best be described, in this sense, as "chance of an unmitigated hit going through") but increasing the amount of damage you take and healing you require.

The reason that mean mitigation means less than it used to is because, right now, tanks aren't dying because they're taking a crapton of damage over the course of a fight or across a large number of attacks; they're dying because they're taking a *lot* of damage over a short period of time. As such, survivability isn't so much a question of taking *less* damage but taking damage in a manner that can be healed in a more steady manner.

Rather than the numbers being wrong, it's more of a question of needing to reconsider the model to tackle the design of RotHC's content. It's been designed *very* differently than the pre-2.0 content, which emphasized mean mitigation over spikiness minimization. Of course, if the content was designed with this different construct in mind (rather than it just being an accidental tweak on the part of the content design team), one has to wonder why the hell the devs weren't paying attention to what was going on with the modified spikiness of the tanks in 2.0 (i.e. Guardians became super smooth and Shadows actually became spikier) while consistently referring to Shadows still being excellent tanks thanks to their excellent mean mitigation (which, by consequence of the new mechanics) when mean mitigation means absolutely nothing.

Honestly, if spikiness is going to be the only mitigation construct that matters (which it seems like it's going to be unless the devs pull a full reverse on what they seem to be doing), we'll have to revise the optimal distributions (i.e. massive amounts of Shield) which creates some *very* boring mitigation profiles. I *seriously* hope the devs actually realize what the hell they've ended up doing, screwing up was, previously, a really interesting design construct for tanks (balancing out mean mitigation and spikiness) by replacing it with a really boring one (spikiness is the only thing that matters).

I have followed this and KBN's posts with regards to stat balances with both my Jugg and BH. However, I see more and more ppl now going down the route of less defense and more shield.

Also, in a raid last night, I healed a Jugg & BH which neither had more than 12% Defense. I though to myself.....here we go! However, one of the easiest healing Raids I have done as a healer (TFB). After speaking to them, they again confirmed, they went heavy on shield and took points out of defense.

This has really confused me now, after all the work both Dpstik and KBN have done, I am starting to think that from experience, the number don't work.

Anyone else noticed the same?

Hmm... optimising for less overall damage vs optimising for smoother damage. My personal preference is towards smoother damage, simply because its much easier for the healer.

based on the tfb data i have (data posted by kbn in 2.0 pts), after weighting the fights for the fraction of dps each boss does and weighting the weapon/tech fraction i get (in order of bosses):
w/k t/k w/i t/i
2171.39 0.00 1047.81 109.11
0.652400161 0 0.314816206 0.032783633

858.88 0.00 487.17 424.48
0.485099549 0 0.275155054 0.239745397

967.12 0.00 243.01 0.00
0.799190142 0 0.200809858 0

455.95 0.00 726.38 64.62
0.365652621 0 0.582527093 0.051820286

2097.94 0.00 541.38 180.99
0.743868876 0 0.191956945 0.064174179

FINAL ANSWER:
w/k t/k t/i
0.631374959 0.293530511 0.07509453

based on these numbers i get:

shadows:
200
1056
1319

jugg:
947
860
887

PT:
371
1356
966

---------------

This highlights another problem for shadows. shadows optimal distribution of stats is far more sensitive to the damage weights of each boss than the other two classes. i think this is quite evident by showing that:

the (absolute value of) change of optimal defense with respect to the change in fraction weapon/kinetic is much higher than the other two classes.

based on the tfb data i have (data posted by kbn in 2.0 pts), after weighting the fights for the fraction of dps each boss does and weighting the weapon/tech fraction i get (in order of bosses):
w/k t/k w/i t/i
2171.39 0.00 1047.81 109.11
0.652400161 0 0.314816206 0.032783633

858.88 0.00 487.17 424.48
0.485099549 0 0.275155054 0.239745397

967.12 0.00 243.01 0.00
0.799190142 0 0.200809858 0

455.95 0.00 726.38 64.62
0.365652621 0 0.582527093 0.051820286

2097.94 0.00 541.38 180.99
0.743868876 0 0.191956945 0.064174179

FINAL ANSWER:
w/k t/k t/i
0.631374959 0.293530511 0.07509453

based on these numbers i get:

shadows:
200
1056
1319

jugg:
947
860
887

PT:
371
1356
966

---------------

This highlights another problem for shadows. shadows optimal distribution of stats is far more sensitive to the damage weights of each boss than the other two classes. i think this is quite evident by showing that:

the (absolute value of) change of optimal defense with respect to the change in fraction weapon/kinetic is much higher than the other two classes.

200 defense on a shadow? Sure I can swap the EWH Defense relic for a EWH Shield one, what am I gonna do for absorb then ... hmm....the increase in shield is marginal even with that 120 value. Will that really make a difference ?? its not more than 1.x %. I am already at 57%+ chance without it. I was thinking of a heally relic dipstik! You've ruined my day

healy relic and shield EWH is not a bad option for trying to switch stuff up for tfb. what ive seen people do in the past is have a migh mitigation set and a high endurance set that they switch between...

i suggest the high endruance set (high endurance mods and enduance augments maybe) have high shield/absorb, and the high mitigation set have high defense.

@dipstik: One Question:
Am i right that for the relic migation you take the optimal stat Distribution and compare then the different relics with this optimal Distribution, to see which relic gives the final best migation value?
Wouldnt it be more accurate if you (i can just speak for sin tanks here) take the migation stats a relic provides (f.e. 550 defense proc with uptime + 32 stats defense Rating is about don't know 180 defense Rating on average) and take them as additional stats into your formula for optimal migation stats.
This way you would have an optimal Ratio of d/s/a in the end of your calculation. If you do it the other way round i think the d/s/a ratio is then a bit off from the optimal calculated value. As the Healing Relic isn't providing any stats at all for calculations you won't need to do any permutations (atleast for sin tanks )

@dipstik: One Question:
Am i right that for the relic migation you take the optimal stat Distribution and compare then the different relics with this optimal Distribution, to see which relic gives the final best migation value?
Wouldnt it be more accurate if you (i can just speak for sin tanks here) take the migation stats a relic provides (f.e. 550 defense proc with uptime + 32 stats defense Rating is about don't know 180 defense Rating on average) and take them as additional stats into your formula for optimal migation stats.
This way you would have an optimal Ratio of d/s/a in the end of your calculation. If you do it the other way round i think the d/s/a ratio is then a bit off from the optimal calculated value. As the Healing Relic isn't providing any stats at all for calculations you won't need to do any permutations (atleast for sin tanks )

this gets sticky due to the diminishing returns for the relic downtime leaving you most susceptible to damage. i have always considered relics to be "on top of gear" (except for pvp static relics obviously). i know others that gear in the manner you speak of, but i cannot say that i suggest it.

what would need to calced out woud be the mitigation with non-relic balanced stats versus relic-balanced stats, and see which fares better. considering the uptime is much smaller than the downtime, and the downtime is more balance with non-relic balanced stats, my initial guess owuld be non-relic would fare better.

of course i could generate a new expression to optimize... but that would still serve to depreciate mitigation for 17/23rds of the time... and the numbers of this optimiztion would most likey be very similar to non-relic optimized numbers... i think

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The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites.